Hello YDL Boards! I've run Linux Mint 16 on my Windows machines successfully for a few years, so I didn't think putting it on a second hand Mac would be a big deal. My goal with the machine is to be able to play music and watch youtube videos. This is my first Mac ever and researching it, I found I have a powerpc. Therefore I've spent the better part of the last two weeks going down the rabbit hole of Linux for PPC and all it entails.
Long story short, here's the machine: Power Mac G4 'Quicksilver', model #M8493, GeForce 2MX graphics, 768mb SDRAM, OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger), Kernel version Darwin 8.11.0, OS is installed on existing hard drive, I have no OS X install DVD.
I read elsewhere that one cannot install Linux on a Mac without also reinstalling OS X. Having no OS X install disc, I decided to try using the existing/installed OS X to format a second drive, then remove the first drive, and move that formatted 2nd drive into master position by itself, boot from disc and install Linux. To my astonishment, this worked and I now have Yellow Dog 6.2 running on the machine!
Next, I ran into the problem with the Yum repositories being outdated. I saw posts from PPietro and BillB about updating the entries. I don't quite understand how to do it, and need to figure that out. (not even sure of those other repositories are still active?) And then on to the youtube fixes I read about on the forum.
However...back to subject of my post...the general age of the posts on this forum concerns me. Am I too late? Is the YDL on PPC party over? It's been sad to read about distro after distro ending support for these old machines.
I've learned a lot in my Linux for PPC experience and I don't regret the adventure. But I'm wondering if I'm going down a dead end road. I just hate discarding a machine that still runs well. Should I go down the Gentoo or OpenBSD road instead?
Thank you.